Saw this guy looking pretty listless in his cup. He has beautiful purple fins, so I went ahead and grabbed him. He's the third LPS Betta I've gotten, and in the worse shape so far. I'll see if I can get him back to health, and I'd love to see what his prime colors are like.

Pictures with flash:

He seems to have some sort of swim bladder problem, or he's just really exhausted. I've seen him floating vertical head up when not awkwardly tilted like that. He's not interested in food, but that's almost to be expected.

I'm keeping him in my 1 gallon medicine tank with 50-90% water changes every day until he perks up. Using Stress Coat+ to condition water and adding AQ salt. Hopefully with his warm water and peaceful space he will start to feel better.

I have one that got better in 3 days like that that I saw at Petco. If he doesn't eat don't worry some of the problem is that he may have been overfed. Epsom salt is actually better if it's swim bladder problem. He's really pretty I've always wanted a purple fish.

He survived the night, which is good, but he's been hanging vertical all day today. He has been in one corner for a while, then moved to another corner, against the thermometer. Not sure what to do for the guy besides let him rest!

Hopefully those aren't the "death bubbles" above him. He is NOT building a bubble nest. :(

Also, he looks really thin in that second photo, but his body is rounder/wider than his fins. It just looks weird in the photo.

I had just finished putting his lid back on after doing a water change and peered inside to look him over. To my dismay, he was nowhere in the tank! Somehow I couldn't locate him in the small 1 gallon with no gravel and one decoration. I frantically checked the area around the tank to see if he had jumped out, but he wasn't around.

I peer back into the tank to try to explain how he could have vanished and what do I see peeking up at me?

He had backing himself into a small cave in the decoration, which was not its intended purpose but he must have wanted a cave. Silly Betta!
Peeking out more to see why I was freaking out.

His improvement thus far has been that he's been a little more active in the tank and staying less vertical. I still haven't seen any poop, but I managed to interest him in a NLS pellet!